Topic 5 (open access) has been one of the most eye-opening topic so far in this very interesting module. It has given the opportunity to many UOSM2008 student to research and come up with some amazing results which most of them would have never thought of before, personally myself, before researching on this topics, I had never even heard of or even considered the Open Access debate in fact I didn’t know the whole operations between the producers, publishers, open access and all the reasons behind them.

So I think it was great to learn more about this subject, and just to understand how important it is not only for university students like myself, but every other public member around the globe.

After all the research I have done on open access considering both the users/readers and producers’ perceptive also by reading other colleagues’ blog posts, I have come up with a number of advantages and disadvantage’s which has broaden my knowledge and has helped me understand the actual principles of open access also the benefits people will get from it. Sara had similar arguments as me, she stated on her post “Jack Andraka, a teenage cancer researcher… argues that open access to scientific journals is important because then an important financial barrier to knowledge would be removed” after reading this and looking into this specific topic, as a student I totally agree with her since it removes the division between scientist sharing ideas and research.

I also read Saber’s blog, which I found interesting to read since he has covered the topic logically with advantages and disadvantages of open access. This week’s topic certainly required the most research during the module. For a topic I had little knowledge of before this blog post, I am delighted to say that this topic was one of the most interesting for me and I have learned profoundly for it.

Let’s start by exploring what open access actually is. The video below elaborates on open and closed access:

After watching this video, I believe that universities and colleges around the globe should provide access to academic journals not only for its students but for the general public.

Access to free online content/material could be beneficial to its users and even non-users e.g. if first-aid instructions for various types of injuries were published, not only the reader, but also people who aren’t aware about it will be positively affected by it. But sadly people often pay attention only on the effects to consumers and our society, disregarding how these free materials can influence the content producers.

Making contents/materials available online for free doesn’t benefit the producer, since they spend a huge amount of time and effort on creating something others will benefit from. Surely they should get something in return. By making their product become easily and freely accessible, producers “seemingly” give away the opportunity to make money and sometimes lose money since they have to pay for publishing costs.

Can you imagine what it would be like if you had to pay for all the online contents you use? We use the online content all the time without realising who created it – when or how? There are a number of advantages and disadvantages to a content producer/author of making their materials freely available online for the public.

The image above pinpoints a few benefits of open access. Open access provides the opportunity to interchange ideas all around the globe, specifically scientists who require exposure. It enables easier communication between researchers globally, fostering further development and innovation.

However, making content available free online may lack in quality control – the issue that is usually brought up in discussions on open access is the ‘predatory open access’. This describes unethical publishers, who lack acceptable peer-review. By paying their publication fee, their article will be published regardless of its scientific value and sometimes it doesn’t help the public.

I have strong views on open accesses publishing but that come from my own strong views on open data, I find it difficult to understand people who want to keep their data closed when it is being funded by public domain resources for the good of everybody.

For this week’s topic, I chose to research deeper into ethical issues surrounding social media. I found the most significant ethical issue was identity theft and I found it interesting and almost entertaining watching ‘Catfish’ and understand real-life stories about ‘Catfishing’. Of course, there’s many more ethical issues when using social media in the workplace including: cyberbullying, misleading advertisments and endorsements and blurred boundaries between personal and work lives.

During further readings, I came across Nicole’s blog post highlighting several cases involving social media including Nestlé. Nicole replied to my comment asking her to identify the most important ethical issue, in her opinion. She said: “Integrity is a ethical issue that is being picked up more and more by the media but not as heavily broadcasted as cyberbullying and identity theft. Good business ethics encourages integrity, so when a company’s integrity is undermined by individual’s behaviour, its an ethical issue.” Her response gave me better understanding about her perspective and she also provided me with a website link to continue my research.

I also found Tamara’s blog post very interesting. I thought the use of interactive features was unique since I’d read many text posts when researching. We discussed a particular case about a Marie Claire blogger commenting on overweight people. Tamara agreed that the blogger was wrong because her comments went against the standard expectations associated with her blogging so she received heavy criticism from her readers.

Overall, this topic was relatable because I’ve always understood the need for ethical standards when social media is used in the workplace. During my research, I found it interesting to note how different businesses maintain contrasting ethical standards and I’ve noticed many similar cases involving incorrect use of social media.

15 million users in the UK alone use Twitter as a platform for communication to access news and to read and share tweets – which is why social media is great for businesses. But while it’s encouraged to share your thoughts, there’s an increasing risk of identity theft. Twitter allows users to a certain a sense of anonymity where users can create ‘fake’ accounts to abuse others [1].

“It has given a voice to people who have often felt excluded and powerless. It has facilitated entertainment, argument, gossip and abuse.” [2]

Identity theft is one of the most significant ethical issues concerning social media today. Users who are frequently sharing sensitive information online remain an easy target for ‘Catfishing.” Leah Palmer, real name Ruth Palmer (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31710738) was a victim of ‘Catfishing’. She openly shared private pictures on an unprotected Instagram account before someone created a fake account pretending to be Ruth, cyber-dated at least 6 men and portrayed Ruth’s husband as a “psychotic ex”.

Watch to learn a little more about “Catfishing”:

Recently, I’ve seen many people sharing images on Instagram via a fake account replicating ‘Nike, Adidas, Emirates etc’ assuming they’re taking part in a company competition. Creating a fake account on Instagram takes less than a minute and this is a huge concern for businesses using social media.

But ‘Catfishing’ isn’t the only issue – Facebook and Instagram users are also unknowingly agreeing to share personal information with third parties. Facebook’s policy clearly states: “We transfer information to vendors, service providers, and other partners who globally support our business”, yet many users are unaware their personal information is being shared across the world. [3]

This topic was interesting for me since I have social networking profiles. While researching and looking at classmates’ blogs, I realised the time that creating a suitable profile can take. This topic has enabled me to appreciate authenticity in general and it also shows how much effort individuals put to be authentic in a diverse online culture. I really liked the idea that everyone had a different approach towards this topic, which resulted in better understanding of the topic.

Furthermore, the topic emphasises that you should maintain the recruiters interest in you, whether it is by showcasing your personality on Facebook/Twitter to them, or solely informing them that you have viewed their profile on LinkedIn. Tatiana wrote a comment on my blog in terms of consistency between social platforms and I agree that even if I’m not consistent on all my social platforms yet, I’m working and trying to be consistent. She made me realise that it really is worth putting time in to it in order to land myself my dream job.

Reading Leigh’s blog was really useful as it underlined the fact that employers screen applicants by checking content they post on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter rather than just LinkedIn, which I did not know prior to this week. To support this he has also stated, “70% of employers have stated that they’ve ruled out a job candidate because of something negative they found online” which makes us, think that we must be curious when it comes to posting things online.

Overall, I have found this topic very informative on how to realistically create your online profile and think that these skills and knowledge will be incredibly beneficial to me when I start to implement my learning and look for my dream job.

As our digital world is expanding, the ways in which employers look for new recruits are changing. Having a strong identity should be the starting point. Most of us know that building an online professional profile is becoming really essential. Employers and recruiters use the web and scan through individuals personal profiles in order to help them conduct employment backgrounds and to recruit the people they’re after [1].

According to (Jobvite, Social Recruiting Survey 2014) “73% of recruiters used social media to hire employees whereas 94% of recruiters used LinkedIn as their primary research tool for new employees”[2].

Jobvite’s Social Recruiting Survey in 2014 [2]

In order to secure the perfect job, you must develop your own professional identity in order to differentiate yourself and stand out to an employer among other competitors. An effective professional profile helps to sell yourself better to recruiters via your personal branding online and I’ll elaborate below.

Without this ultimate presence online that gets employers attention, recruiters will not be able to find you and make a critical judgement call on your online identity. For this reason many are encouraged to preserve and maintain a genuine profile which helps enhance and identify their persona, online as much as they are offline.

When finding a job in a competitive market, how can you stand out amongst other competitors?

By creating an authentic online professional profile which is genuine, and more significantly, a profile that represents you. Social platforms also enable constant networking and communication that has gifted us with ability to express ourselves, while remaining authentic.

A few tips to help enhance an authentic online professional profile:

Using a professional picture of yourself for all your online profiles, as it would be easier for recruiters to find you.

Audit your profile
Review your profiles objectively and try to have appropriate things about yourself, which will be suitable for professional circles to see.

Be authentic and genuine
Being fake doesn’t define who you are, it’s important to be honest in displaying who you are online and in your resume. Lying will not get you far in life, recruiters will soon notice you, and hence they are experts in this field.

Have all your social network profiles linked – this increases employer reachability.

Surprisingly I haven’t thought of this particular topic before, it was quiet interesting researching and finding out whether to have one or multiple online identities, by looking at professionals and the publics point of views towards this subject, I have found out a lot of pros and cons and their impacts on us, in terms of privacy and security.

Indeed I have learned a lot by reading Jack’s blog as he raised the fact that “Most commonly people separate their social lives with their professional/business lives” which to a certain stage I agree with his point, but when in some cases in theory, you can not separate your professional online identity from your social online identity for example: being a famous individual such as Lewis Hamilton( the formula one driver) it will be easier for people to find you online.

Reading Aliyu’s blog has enlighten me as it was informative and covered the topic from certain point of views without being bias. Overall what I found really fascinating was the views of everyone as each individual approached the topic from a different perspective which enabled me to look at this task from different points by providing various of questions and ideas to help in finding solutions for a particular issue.

I think to chose wether to have a single or several online identities really depends on the individual and what their intentions and situations they are in.

“Individuals have the opportunity to cultivate an identity as part of their socio-professional activity. Moreover, they have the right to question and reflect about that identity.” (Mcluhan, 1968). The Internet gives individuals the freedom to create an online presence through different identities. But by allowing anonymity, are we essentially opening up the freedom to deceive?

As we spend more time connected on our digital devices, we now live in two worlds living digital double lives, we create our media and our media turns and shapes us. The Internet gives us the ability to craft our personas but to what extend can we control who we are online and to what extend are we bound to who we actually are in the real world.

Living in public all the time and having our thoughts and actions curved for eternity, are we really free to be ourselves online? Or are we constantly preforming, constantly being watched and plotting our actions like updates and strategy game. Nowadays almost whatever we do online we leave trace by leaving our digital footprint, which is used by third party companies for targeted adverts.

Multiple online identities benefit:

Presentation

Reputation

Presentation deals with the way in which we showcase our practice online and how we contribute in certain shared online spaces. Whereas reputation focuses on what others think of us. Judgment of people online takes a precise form via the different networks of communication. Our behaviour is modelled and judged socially and culturally. So management of online identity is essential as it can have impacts on our online activities both face-to-face and online. The Guardian recently reported a young girl lost her job before even starting because of a negative tweet: (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/11402369/Rude-tweet-gets-teenager-fired-before-starting-new-job.html).

Violation of service for many companies. Facebook’s Terms of Service states: “you will not create more than one personal account.”

Splits audience. When maintaining a strictly professional profile, individuals might have valuable contacts from their personal page – who could help in their professional field.

Personally I think by looking at all the pros and cons of having one or multiple online identities it’s not easy to decide which one to go for, as nowadays even the minor and unnecessary things you do will need the use of your identity in certain ways and some people may not feel comfortable with giving their identity, or they do not trust it, in some cases they will use a fake identity just for the sake of being on the safe side. But I think it really depends on the individual’s intention and the situation and what they believe is best for them.

When I first saw the question for topic 1, i thought that I fall into the digital visitor class in terms of making use of today’s technology and the Web but as I started my research on this topic and looked at different peoples ideas such as Mr White’s and read the previous years blogs that were written about the same topic, as I gathered more information, It started to change my opinion and agreed that I am more of a digital resident rather than a digital visitor.

Having read other people’s blogs related to the same topic and researched online, I have found out a positive correlation between people and technology, as technology enhances we see an increase on digital residents and we can see now that since the 2000s technology has been improving tremendously and, there are more social media being created and more people becoming members and creating accounts with them, for example: Facebook, snap chat, Tumbler etc.

Everyone had different point of views about how older people using the Web and the Internet but the point raised by Mr Aliyu Aliyu which was said by David White, “Age is not the predominant factor in the successful engagement with digital technology and the web. But on our motivation to engage”. To back this up he give an example of an 82 year old lady being a member on twitter and having more than 2000 followers, this has really changed my point of view as I used to think the older you get the less you will use the internet.

To conclude having to read my colleagues point of views and comment on their blogs I personally believe that this topic was an interesting subject to work on and I think I have fully understood the concept of both, digital resident and digital visitors.